The Cow-Pie Chronicles (20 page)

“What are you doing?” Tim asked.

“Seeing if there are any blood stains left,” Billy said.

Tim laughed then patted Billy on the head. “That was 47 years ago. The stains are long gone, but my nose still bleeds real easy if I bump it hard.”

Billy walked the rest of the way down the steps and spotted a row of 20 steel structures in the milking parlor. They looked like traps to him. “What are those?”

“Those are steel bars. We used the small pens to keep the cows from moving around while we milked them. They stuck their heads through like this,” Tim said, stepping through one set of vertical bars, “so they could eat the grain we put in front of them.”

“Okay, but how did you keep them in?” Billy asked.

“Well, then we closed the bars like this,” Tim said, grabbing the bar that was made to slide over the cow's neck. But the bar wouldn't move. “This bar kept the cows from getting out or hurt while they were being milked. I guess it's so old now, it's stuck,” Tim said.

“Did you milk all the cows, Dad?” Billy asked.

“No. My job was at the other end, over here,” Tim said. He stepped out to a shallow gutter in the concrete floor. “This is where the cows pooped while they ate. My job was cleaning it out after every milking.”

Billy jumped back, away from the gutter. “Yuck! How could you stand it? Didn't it smell gross?!”

“It wasn't the worst job I had, but I did hate it,” Tim said. “Aunt Dana used to call me ‘Poop Slinger.' ”

“Poop Slinger!” Billy shouted then giggled.

“Don't you ever tell your mother my nickname. Understand?” Tim said.

“I won't.”

Tim pointed to a pile of rotting boards in a corner. “Over there is where the calf pen used to be. Patsy was my personal responsibility from the day she was born.”

Billy stared at the pile of boards while he thought about having a pet calf. “How do you play with a pet cow?” he asked.

“You don't play with it. You feed it, clean out its pen, wash it off and brush it.”

Billy gave his dad a disgusted look. “You call that a pet?”

“I didn't say she was a pet. I said she was my responsibility,” Tim said.

Billy walked to a hallway in the end of the barn. “What's in there?”

“I'll show you,” Tim said.

Billy followed his dad through the short hallway to a tall, curved wall with a line of three-foot-square holes running up its side. He stepped a little closer and looked up through an opening in the roof. The curved wall formed a cylinder like a huge, round oatmeal box.

“It's called a silo,” Tim said. “We filled it full of chopped corn stalks and other feed in the summer to feed to the cows all winter.”

“How'd you keep the corn from falling out of the holes?” Billy asked.

Tim looked around the hallway then walked over and picked up a slab of wood. It was about the same size and shape as the holes in the curved wall and had two lever-like handles on it. He carried it over to the silo, inserted it into the lowest hole, twisted the handles to lock it in place, and then stepped back. “We put those in all the way up to the top when we filled it up. During winter as we emptied corn out of the silo, we took them out to get to the next lower level.”

Billy stared up at the top of the silo. To him, it was so tall that he was sure it was scraping the clouds. “How'd you get all the way up there when it was full?”

“We used the handles like a ladder,” Tim said as he grabbed one of them.

“Looks dangerous,” Billy said.

“Try doing it in the rain with a pitchfork in one hand. I fell down from the fourth level once and the tines of the fork fell on top of me, stabbing me right in the knee,” Tim said. “My leg was so badly injured that I spent the Fourth of July waving sparklers from the porch.”

Billy was stunned. “You could've been killed!”

“I heard that a lot. Let's go back outside,” Tim said.

Billy followed his dad back through the milking parlor, up the stone steps and to the door. Then his dad stopped suddenly, turned around and stared into the rafters above. “Well I'll be—it's still there.”

“What is?” Billy asked.

His dad pointed a finger at a rotting piece of rope that was hanging down a few feet from the highest rafter. “The rope swing.”

Billy stared at it, confused. “How'd you swing on that?”

“It used to hang all the way to the floor. Aunt Dana and I would swing on it for hours,” Tim said.

“How'd it get up there?” Billy asked.

Tim started to smile as he remembered the day he tied the rope swing on the wooden beam, but his mom blamed his dad for pulling the climbing stunt. “I crawled out on that rafter and tied it there.”

Billy's eyes bugged out as he stared at the rafter in the shadows high above him. “You're crazy!”

“I heard that a lot, too,” Tim said.

They went back to the car. Tim stared at the barn thoughtfully for a few minutes. Billy looked at his dad then at the barn, trying to figure out what he was staring at. “Do you wish you still lived here?” Billy asked.

“No, but I wish somebody lived here now, with children having the same experiences and learning the same lessons I learned growing up,” Tim said.

Billy shook his head in wonder. “It's pretty amazing you became a senator after living here.”

Tim thought about it for a minute before answering. “No, it isn't. The lessons I learned here are why I was able to become a
senator
.”

“What lessons?” Billy asked.

Tim thought about all the adventures he had on the farm as a child, all the work, all the responsibility, all of the family members who came to visit, and how he felt when it all ended. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the car. “You get out of life what you put into it.”

Billy frowned as he looked back at the barn. “I don't understand.”

“I know, but maybe seeing how I grew up will help you understand someday,” Tim said.

Billy studied the barn and the mess that surrounded it, wondering how he could ever understand what it meant to his father.

“There's something else I don't understand,” Billy said.

“What's that?” Tim asked.

“Why was Patsy your responsibility if she wasn't your pet?”

Tim smiled again as he remembered the first time he saw Patsy. “I saved her life when she was born.”

Billy thought he was going to throw up. “You didn't give the cow mouth-to-mouth, did you?”

Tim laughed and put his arm around his son's shoulders. “No, it's a little more complicated than that. I'll tell you about it on the way.”

“Home?” Billy asked.

“Nope, to the East Dairy outlet store for the best ice cream you've ever tasted,” Tim said.

They got into the car, backed out of the driveway and headed down the bumpy gravel road.

“Okay, tell me now. Tell me how you saved a cow's life,” Billy said.

“Well, it all started the first time my dad showed me how a calf was born . . .”

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GLOSSARY

4-H Club
> teaches farming and life skills to kids (
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180
-
degree
turn
> turn and go in the opposite direction (
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agape
> wide open (
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athleticism
> being fit, strong and good at sports (
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)

auction
> a sale where people bid against each other on items for sale and the highest bidder wins (
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auctioneer
> the leader of an auction who talks really fast and tries to get bidders to bid higher on each item (
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)

bellowed
> to cry out or for a cow to moo loudly (
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back
forty
> 40 acres of land, about the size of 40 football fields(
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bidders
> a person who offers to pay a certain price for something, often raising their bid when someone else offers a higher price for the same thing (
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bovine
> another name for a cow or bull (
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briar
patch
> a bunch of weeds with lots of stickers (
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bushel
> a measurement equal to 64 pints or 8 gallons (
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)

caper
> a funny or crazy activity (
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cat's
-
eye
boulders
> larger clear glass marbles with a swirl of color inside that some think looks like a cat's eye (
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cinder
block
> concrete blocks that are stacked on top of each other (like bricks) to create walls for buildings (
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coal
> a black rock like charcoal burned to heat homes (
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combine
> A large farming machine used to harvest crops such as wheat (
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)

confidently
> being sure of one's skills or knowledge (
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consequences
> the good or bad results from doing something to someone or to something (
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cow
chip
> dried blob of cow poop (
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Daisy
50
-
shot
BB gun
> spring-powered rifle that shoots small BBs; used mostly by kids learning gun safety and target practice (
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dead
run
> running as fast as one can (
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double
-
barrel
> a shotgun with two barrels side-by-side most often used for hunting birds. (
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drafty
> having holes or gaps that allow cold air through (
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ducts
> metal tubes for square pipes that carry hot air from a furnace or heater to the different rooms of a house (
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)

dusk
> the time between when the sun sets and when it finally gets dark outside (
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dynamite
> an explosive often used on farms to remove large tree trunks from the ground and break up huge rocks (
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embers
> the hot and often glowing coals of a dying fire (
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feed
company
> store that sells food such as hay for livestock (
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fertilizer
> natural products such as cow manure or special chemicals used to make plants grow faster and bigger (
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)

feud
> a long time argument or fight, often between neighbors (
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)